NUTRITIONAL BIOCHEMISTRY OF CALCIUM AND PHOSPHORUS

The increased longevity of Western populations, especially of women, has forced a reexamination of the nutritional biochemistry of Ca and P, especially how these nutrients relate to bone mass over the increasingly extended period of late adulthood. The current epidemic of hip fractures in northern Europe and probably in North America, 57,58 with an impending rise in the early twenty-first century, impels us to: (1) optimize nutritional intakes of both Ca and P throughout life; (2) to reduce, perhaps, animal protein in the diet to promote the attainment of adult peak bone mass prior to the menopause; and (3) to maintain as much of that peak bone mass as possible in the face of the postmenopausal phase of ovarian cessation, and the inexorable bone loss related to the loss of estrogen production, and the inactivity and loss of skeletal muscle function of both superannuated men and women.44. © 1991.